


Things Unsaid

by Fionavar



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mentions of Major Character Death, Orlan Watcher, Priest of Skaen Watcher, Stolen Orlan Baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 15:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11763054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fionavar/pseuds/Fionavar
Summary: For the PoE Fic Swap 2017, prompted by the fantastic catofcombs: The time has come for Oublie and Hiravias to part ways, post-game. They talk about the time they’ve spent together, what they plan to do/where they plan to go, and say their goodbyes





	Things Unsaid

Things changed, after Sun in Shadow. The people Oublie had gathered around her began to drift away as older ties and other commitments reasserted themselves. Sagani had been the first to leave. She hadn’t even come back to Caed Nua; too eager to return to her family and village with news of a successful hunt, the ranger had left them at Twin Elms. Kana Rua and Pallegina also had far to go, but they, at least, had stayed for the celebration at the keep. Aloth and Edér seemed undecided, and Grieving Mother would stay awhile yet – held more by little Vela than by any loyalty to Oublie.

That left only one of them, and the one who mattered most. Little had been said between them since their return to Caed Nua, and never anything that mattered. Then, some things didn’t need to be.

His expression had been clear enough.

“We don’t need him,” she murmured to Vela, hugging her baby close as they sat up on the battlements, watching the evening business of the keep under the rising moon. “Let him think me a monster. Anyone would have done the same. That’s how the world turns. You’ll understand one day.”

“There’s nothing creepy about that at all,” Hiravias said from behind her.

“Oh, fuck you!” she exclaimed. “You nearly scared me off the wall!”

“You should have heard me,” the druid replied. “You have two good ears.” He leaned against the wall beside her. “So, uh…”

“You’re leaving,” she said quietly. She had been certain of that for days; still, the spoken words felt like an icy breeze through her fur.

“Yeah. Before dawn. It’ll be a clear night for travelling.”

She ought to wish him luck and let him go, probably. Oublie had never much liked what she ‘ought’ to do. It rose in her like a winter tide: familiar and comforting anger made bitter and strange by regret. Savage honesty spilled free from her, as though her heart came pouring out of her mouth without her volition and unshielded by her customary lies. “Don’t insult me with small talk. I know you better than that. You stuck it as long as you could, as long as your quest for answers came with food and sex, but you’ve had enough. You can’t forgive me for the Engwithan ruins, for the choices I’ve made, the power I took, the people I killed, for taking Vela, for fucking _Durance_! Now you think I’m a monster and you’re running back to your bog. Maybe you hate me, maybe you’re afraid of me, I don’t know. Well, listen, you’re responsible, because I couldn’t have done _any_ of it without you!”

She had almost shrieked the last words, and her fury had woken Vela. As the baby cried, Oublie turned away and started rocking her.

“Wow. Okay. You’ve been chewing on that for a while, huh?” Hiravias’s voice was very quiet. “That has to be the weirdest way _anyone_ ever thanked me.”

There was more she could say, one final truth at the core of her heart, but was the point? He was leaving, and if he hated her, he didn’t deserve it. She had never cared for the truth anyway.

“You were fucking Durance?” he asked, and the humour sounded automatic, false. “That would explain the crotch rot I picked up-“

“ _No,”_ she said, her anger fading in the face of his jokes as it always had, leaving only regret. “ _I sacrificed him_.”

“I guessed.” Oublie turned, and he was shrugging. “Well, it was a Skaenite thing, and you’re a Skaenite, and you kill people for less than the things he kept spewing at you. It wasn’t difficult to figure out.”

She met his eye for the first time in days. It seemed just as unreadable as the embroidered sigil of Wael next to it. “You never said – did the others-?”

“Oh, maybe,” Hiravias said. “None of us are entirely stupid. Which is one reason why nobody said anything about a lot of the shit you’ve done. Only Edér would poke at an angry lioness and expect to keep his hand.” He sighed. “Look. You want the truth?”

“You might as well,” she said, as Vela finally calmed. “You’re leaving anyway.”

“I don’t waste time hating – or forgiving - predators for what they are.”

She blinked, caught more off-guard by that simple statement than by almost anything that had been said since a bîaŵac changed her life. There was understanding and acceptance in it, and both were an unexpected balm.

“You’re what you were made to be,” Hiravias continued. “Vicious, impulsive, and dedicated to survival. It’s no use trying to change or tame something like you. Stelgaer or orlan, it doesn’t matter. Around a predator, you… take care. If you don’t behave like prey, you might not be attacked. Maybe it even sees you as one of its own, and you run as pack for a while.”

“For a while,” she repeated softly.

“Yeah,” he said. “You don’t stay long after the kill. Predators aren’t good at sharing their meat… and sooner or later, everything else is prey or a rival. That’s how it goes.”

The terms were Galawain’s, but the meaning behind them was almost of Skaen. There was power: those who had it would do anything to keep it, and those without would do the same to gain it.

It was enough.  

She let that final, hidden truth go free, and the words fell softly on the moonlight. “I could have loved you.”

“Who couldn’t?” he answered, his humour hiding nothing. “It wouldn’t have changed anything… but I almost loved you as much as I love myself.”

She smiled, then.  

“And, look,” Hiravias added. “Maybe one of these days you’ll feel like changing your hunting grounds. Maybe you’ll want to give Vela the choice of Eír Glanfath. Maybe you’ll find me and we’ll hunt together again.”

“Maybe,” Oublie said, as though it were a promise.

Nothing more was said between them that night.

But then, some things didn’t need to be.


End file.
